Friday, December 14, 2007

No News - Is That GOOD News?

We still haven't heard a decision from the judge as to if my land developer neighbor will be given an easement across my property so he can sub-divide his property. Trial was a week ago Tuesday, and at the start of trial our prospects looked bleak, as it was obvious to me that the judge had already made up his mind as to how he would decide and it was going to be a dog and pony show to make it look like everything was being considered, even if that was not the case. Fortunately I have an outstanding attorney who truly knows what he's doing, and by the end of the day it looked like the judge had finally seen through all of my neighbor's smoke and mirrors and had figured out just what was going on. The judge also knew by the end of trial that if the law wasn't followed, an appeal was definitely going to be filed. Dick, my attorney, had done a thorough job of getting everything needed for the appeal into the record, and when opposition objected to particular evidence or testimony, Dick got it into the record for the appeal through a process called "Offer of Proof". Offer of Proof allows the testimony to continue over opposition's objection. It cannot be considered in the current proceeding, but it CAN be considered in the appeal. The judge wasn't too happy about that, but there wasn't much he could do to stop it.

Now all we can do is wait for the Judge's decision. In my opinion, at the start of trial the odds were stacked 1000 to 1 against us. By the end of the day I think it was about 50-50. That's not the odds I would like to have, but it's a whole lot better than it was.